Wow, just a little more than a year later and Caroline and I are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. While masks around us are quickly disappearing due to an idiot governor more interested in political expediency than science and public health, we are willing to continue masking up until herd immunity is reached or the CDC signals that things are safe enough to do so. Now we need to hope that Europe hits the accelerator on getting its citizens vaccinated so the international travel market can reopen. Even if it does open this year and we’re cleared to not use masks, I’d venture that we’ll do that 11-hour haul across the United States and the Atlantic while covered up. I’ve already looked for an app where I could store copies of our vaccination records that might transition to an official vaccine passport but those are not easy to find, yet.

So how does life change? I’m not as worried about contracting a death sentence. Yes, it is my fault that I am obese which helped cause my diabetes and high blood pressure, but that still doesn’t mean that I should want to give up and sacrifice my life due to prior poor decision making. If that was a thing, many of us should have been thrown to the Soylent Green machine when we were teenagers or young adults. If we are lucky and enough fellow citizens follow suit or we get to vaccine passports quick enough, I’d like to get back to museums and concerts without worrying about the people around me. Hopefully, we’ll continue seeing millions of people vaccinated every day and can start to emerge safely from this ugly virus.